Zero-Sum

Stories

By: Joyce Carol Oates

Narrated by: Olivia Rose Barresi, Amy Jensen, Max Meyers, Linda Jones, Karissa Vacker, Cassandra Campbell, Robert Fass

Zero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in these arresting stories by one of America’s most acclaimed writers, the award-winning, best-selling author of Blonde

A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered; diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community; a woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover; a young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as “mother.” In the collection’s longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with “drafts” of his own suicide.

In these powerfully wrought stories that hold a mirror up to our time, Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism, and ever-shifting identities. Provocative and stunning, Zero-Sum reinforces Oates’s standing as a literary treasure and an artist of the mysterious interior life.

Cover image: Zeno's Arrow. 1964 by René Magritte © 2022 C. Herscovici / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Banque d'Images, ADAGP / Art Resource, NY

Critic reviews

“Electric . . . A vein of feminist horror runs through Zero-Sum . . . [Zero-Sum’s] zero-sum games [advance] to an existential battle between humanity and the destructive forces it has unleashed.”
—Kate Folk, The New York Times Book Review

“A bewitching collection of speculative stories about women dealing with society and violence . . . [The stories in Zero-Sum contain] quintessential Oates intrigue and mystery.”
—Sophia June, Nylon

“An electric story collection from a lit icon . . . Violence simmers and sometimes boils over.”
—Keziah Weir, Vanity Fair

“Powerfully wrought . . . Zero-sum games are played for lethal stakes in this collection of arresting stories by one of America’s most acclaimed writer . . . Joyce Carol Oates has created a world of erotic obsession, thwarted idealism and ever-shifting identities.”
—Heather Steele, SheerLuxe

“Dark, powerful new tales by the masterful literary icon.”
—AARP The Magazine

“Captivating . . . Humanity in all its devilishness is on vibrant display in these short and potent flashes of life in bleak corners. Readers will be spellbound.”
—Publishers Weekly, starred

Dark irony

I enjoyed a lot of this bleak collection in spite of overwriting and over acting..

Some very good material, but mixed overall

This falls into the trap common to many short story collections, being uneven in quality. There's some very good material here, stories that set up gripping ideas with various degrees of unsettling mood. But others just didn't grab me - the writing style was still solid, but something in the content just never hooked my interest. So, some very good stories but inconsistent enough to make for a mixed recommendation overall.